Local driver Steve Anscombe provided most of the excitement in the latest meeting at Arlington Stadium.

More than 20 stock cars for a midweek meeting was an impressive turnout, and Anscombe was involved in the thick of the action.

The opening heat won by the popular Eastbourne driver was the best race of the night.

Former ministox driver Lee Pearce soon built up a big lead, but Anscombe gradually cut it back and got past as they started the last lap.

Pearce roared back and tried to take out Anscombe as they went into the final bend, just failed to connect, bounced off the safety fence and had to settle for second place.

The other two races were good, albeit with less exciting finishes, and provided plenty more local success with Gary Aylward leading all the way in heat two, followed by Sam-antha Holland and Anscombe.

World champion George Boult forced his way through from the back of the grid to win the final.

Anscombe, however, would not be kept out of the picture. He and Ross Anstiss were both disqualified after some event-ful racing that was not quite as the rule book intended.

The Bangers had a non-Ford night, the line-up including several Triumph 2000s and Nissan Bluebirds with the star of the show the 1963 Standard Vanguard of Crawley's Des Wood.

This was neither fast nor very stable, so it was no sur-prise when it finally over-turned in the ten-lap dash but still managed to fire up again to take part in the destruction derby, when it soon became an obvious target.

As far as winning was concerned, the Ashford drivers were the most successful on the night, with none of the locals figuring prominently despite good efforts by Dave King and Mark Welland.

The youngsters in the mini-stox set out on the trail of this year's track championship, and the early exchanges were dominated by Ipswich's Damian Wright with two wins.

Young Portslade driver Scott Bourne managed to keep the rest out in the opening heat but fell back in the other two races.

The first Southern Champi-onships of the season were de-cided at the big Bank Holiday meeting.

Track specialist Chris Bradbury, from Reading, and Mark Kelman, of Kings Langley, who had won the English title at Swaffham the week before, fought out the superstox title.

With former world champion Mark Eaton out of the final after breaking his camshaft and local star Dave Pike hav-ing problems, Kelman and Bradbury came home almost unopposed.

Young Mark Almeida, from Eastbourne, was a well deser-ved fifth in a gruelling race.

The powerful East Anglians took four of the top six places in the ministox, including the winner, Damian Wright, from Ipswich.

Results
Stock Cars: Heat 1: 1 Steve Anscombe (Eastbourne); 2 Lee Pearce (Bromley); 3 Matthew Cope (Staplecross). Heat 2: 1 Gary Aylward (Eastbourne); 2 Samantha Holland (Brighton); 3 Anscombe. Final: 1 George Boult (Walton-on-Thames); 2 Mark Glenister (Hailsham); 3 Aylward.

Bangers: Heat: 1 Richie Ahern (Romford); 2 Lee Hughes (Ash-ford); 3 David Wilde (Bracknell). Final: 1 Adrian Clifton (Ash-ford); 2 Hughes; 3 Dave King (Burgess Hill). Dash: 1 Clifton; 2 Aherne; 3 Hughes. Destruction Derby: 1 Hughes; 2 Dale Fair-less (Tunbridge Wells); 3 Rich-ard Flockton (Bracknell).

Ministox: Heat 1: 1 Scott Bourne (Portslade); 2 Damian Wright (Ipswich); 3 Aaron Mor-ris (Binfield). Heat 2: 1 Wright; 2 Morris; 3 Paul Brown (Brain-tree). Final: 1 Wright; 2 Todd Jones (Carshalton); 3 Morris.